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12-09-2009, 07:53 AM
| | Banned | | Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Bilbao España | | | Any advice on how to make my english more refined?
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Any? |
12-09-2009, 08:09 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: New York, NY | | | Usted tiene que leer mas libros en Ingles.
Read more books in English. |
12-09-2009, 08:09 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Belgium | | | writing, reading, speaking...
i've (a bit at least) improved my english spending time on forums :-)
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Markbass LMII - TC electronic RS 212 - Sandberg PM 4
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12-09-2009, 08:11 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Cornwall, UK. | | | Just immerse yourself as much as you can in the language - speak it, read it and listen to it as much as possible.
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I'm what you'd call a "Thread Killer"
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12-09-2009, 08:20 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Manchester, UK | | | Spend some time in the UK or another english speaking country, or with native speakers.
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last.fm/music/Mountains+Became+Machines
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12-09-2009, 08:20 AM
|  | Unprofessional TalkBass Contributor | | Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Brighton, England, UK, Europe | | Read : "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss!!  
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“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”
Charles Mingus |
12-09-2009, 08:56 AM
| | | | Read out loud and stay away form the internet.
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damned teeny pinky....always hits the wrong string and makes this ugly noise.
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12-09-2009, 09:04 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: an ignore list near you | | | Read all of my posts.
Mike |
12-09-2009, 09:11 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Moore, Oklahoma | | | Where a smoking jacket and smoke a pipe. You'll be saying "boot" and "lift" in no time.
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Joey Quote:
Originally Posted by Phalex  I'm in. A lot! | Quote:
Originally Posted by finalrequiem Yes- Listen, I didn't just stick it my ear and blast away. | |
12-09-2009, 09:15 AM
|  | Registered User | | Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Fort Collins, Colorado | | | Reading a lot in any language helps you learn the forms and conventions of that language. Written style is more formal than conversation, but that won't hurt you.
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"...awesome as a monkey wearing a tuxedo made of bacon, riding on a unicorn!'"
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12-09-2009, 09:17 AM
| | Unprofessional TalkBass Contributor | | Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Brighton, England, UK, Europe | | Quote:
Originally Posted by finalrequiem Where a smoking jacket and smoke a pipe. You'll be saying "boot" and "lift" in no time. |
You forgot - pavement, nappies,crisps, sweets and not candies, colour and aluminium properly pronounced etc. etc.
Oh and eat Marmite - that helps!
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“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”
Charles Mingus |
12-09-2009, 09:18 AM
|  | OVNIFX
EXAR pedals rep for North & Central America | | Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: PDX, OR | | | I agree about reading books. Those extra formal touches in edited literature will allow you to see patterns of "correctness" and "normalcy" that would not be apparent from conversation or internet posts. |
12-09-2009, 09:29 AM
|  | The older I get, the better I was. | | Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Pasadena, CA | | Quote:
Originally Posted by finalrequiem Where a smoking jacket and smoke a pipe. | Learning the proper use of homophones and homonyms is something that challenges many people, as we see here. |
12-09-2009, 09:48 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Belgium | | Quote:
Originally Posted by JulienJeff writing, reading, speaking...
i've (a bit at least) improved my english spending time on forums :-) | Well this is true.
Since June 2008 my english is improved by hanging out here.
Well I think... 
Or I adapt all the errors I see here. 
I still can't grasp this whole "its" "it's" thing.
Oh, but I've learned my lesson about the trust/thrust thing.
I'm not thrusting anything anymore. |
12-09-2009, 10:05 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Moore, Oklahoma | | Quote:
Originally Posted by EricF Learning the proper use of homophones and homonyms is something that challenges many people, as we see here. | 
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Joey Quote:
Originally Posted by Phalex I'm in. A lot! | Quote:
Originally Posted by finalrequiem Yes- Listen, I didn't just stick it my ear and blast away. | |
12-09-2009, 10:07 AM
|  | Registered User
Head Tinkerer, The Flufflab | | Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: California | | Get a subscription to The Economist and read it cover-to-cover every week. To balance out the political flavour, get a copy of George Orwell's Collected Essays and read them weekly as well.
Both are excellent examples of English usage.
Edit: for the Orwell, start with this.
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"Grasping the vine in one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!"
Last edited by UncleFluffy : 12-09-2009 at 10:10 AM.
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12-09-2009, 10:15 AM
| | Unprofessional TalkBass Contributor | | Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Brighton, England, UK, Europe | | Quote:
Originally Posted by René_Julien
I still can't grasp this whole "its" "it's" thing.
.
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That's why you need the Lynne Truss book I mentioned!
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“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”
Charles Mingus |
12-09-2009, 10:29 AM
| | The older I get, the better I was. | | Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Pasadena, CA | | Quote:
Originally Posted by René_Julien Well this is true.
Since June 2008 my english is improved by hanging out here.
Well I think... | You do better than a lot of people for whom English is their only language. Quote:
Originally Posted by René_Julien I still can't grasp this whole "its" "it's" thing. | Try this... http://www.stormloader.com/garyes/its.html Quote:
Originally Posted by René_Julien Oh, but I've learned my lesson about the trust/thrust thing.
I'm not thrusting anything anymore. | I'm sorry to hear that. |
12-09-2009, 10:31 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Leeds, UK | | Quote:
Originally Posted by vene-nemesis Any advice on how to make my english more refined? | Capital letters? 
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Originally Posted by Darkstrike If I kicked my dog in time to the music his cries would be better 'singing'. | |
12-09-2009, 10:35 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: May 2007 Location: Catford, London | | Also worth a mention is The BBC. If you can get either the BBC World Service or BBC Radio 4 you'll find possibly the last outpost of "Received Pronunciation" It's not as strict as it once was though, & Regional accents are becoming much more frequent, thankfully.
Almost any book published before 1960 will tend to have both a standard of grammar and a vocabulary in excess of more modern works (James Joyce is excluded from this on account of him being a raving genius & that).
If it's to your taste, I've found that doing crosswords is a painless way of vocabulary expansion.
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